For less than $1,000, you can validate (or invalidate in the worst-case scenario) an idea in less than 3 months. I just came out of a crowdfunding campaign myself, and I'd love to show you the good, the bad, and the ugly from our last Church Films adventure.

You're on a mission - from God, as Elwood Blues said. What's yours?

Is it clear or ambiguous? Does it inspire growth or does it foster apathy?

Take a guess at the above church's size.

If your vision is spelled out, and if it's easy enough for a 6-year-old to understand it, and if you have leadership that's committed to serving people with clear direction, then your church will grow.

I want to help you do that; the same old tiring tithe speech just won't cut it.

The 80/20 rule tells us your closest, core pillars are what keep the lights on anyways.

What if instead of trying to raise funds for the next building or the airfare required for the next pastors' conference, you were raising funds to:

Get an 8-part series on Godly marriage into the hands of 50,000 couples

Feed 1,000 orphans in Mozambique three squares a day for an entire year

Plant 10 new churches in your town over the next 7 years

Because as a leader, you have to cast vision and get people to go where they wouldn't go on their own.

You want to serve your same ten-square miles? Okay. But what about leveraging the tools God has given us to reach millions?

Like video.

Do you know about xvidstatx?

They aggregate YouTube statistics. It's pretty detailed. I had high hopes that a follower of Christ or other Spirit-filled group would crack the top 100.

8 Steps To Calculate Your Goal

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Crush doubt, fight fear and passivity, and create with the King of Kings!

He also has a very full plate between his videos, talks, and materials for Godly, healthy marriages.

Even while running a church, he's built a team, and they are constantly creating new ways to reach people with the hope we have in Jesus.

They just so happen to do it through marriage. And they're darn good at it (plug for Mark Gungor - hint hint).

Brothers, sisters - the hope we have in Jesus has not changed. His message of love, forgiveness, and grace has not changed.

Our methods of delivery have.

Mark reaches multitudes of people through his "Laugh Your Way To A Better Marriage" series - more people than through his church.

And it's not for his glory either, but the King's.

God's crazy about Godly, healthy marriages.

What is your ministry passionate about that you can take outside your four walls?

If you're grasping for ideas:

Take any (non-business account) gmail and login to Google Adwords.

Look for the Keyword Planner under Tools.

Throw in a couple of big items and see how many people are looking for grace.

For example, let's look at how many times "porn" is searched for every month on Google.

After all, you're in ministry. You're in the hope business, the hope that we have in Jesus.

That's just through Google.

Bing has a similar tool.

What could you do? It's hard to teach someone who doesn't want to follow Christ to live like Christ.

But what about the men and women in your congregation that are sold out to Christ? What about those guys and gals that are still wrestling with a porn addiction?

Think you could create a weekly blog to reach them?

Get creative.

Why settle for the same 50 people every Sunday? God's given you all of the tools you need to reach millions if not billions.

What can you teach that's valuable, shareable, and something you can write as a blog? Share on a YouTube channel? Podcast about?

Oh I can't write... thanks for noticing...

Write like you talk Eeyore - problem solved!

And an easy byproduct of blogging is you now have something you can share on your social media accounts, both the pictures you create for your blog and the blog content itself.

You can have your cake and eat it too.

...

It starts with you. Your church, being the church - bold, daring, and living by faith, with clear, unencumbered vision for your flock.

Are you using YouTube?

Or even other social media accounts?

Email newsletter?

There are so many ways to connect with people besides the great cattle herd on Sunday mornings.

I outlined the top three FREE video platforms you can use for your church right now. Pick two of them.

Reread Hebrews 4.

Then stop to think about the impact Esther made. Or the 12. Or Abraham who went on a journey without knowing the end results.

You can do so much more with the message of hope and true freedom that we have in Christ.

We don't want to be big like that Hillsongs church with all their Facebooks, Instragrams, and Snapchats.

I get it. But being small is not an excuse for being lazy with the Gospel.

Have you ever thought about what happened to the 12 disciples?

Judas croaked

Peter was a faithful servant 'til the end

Matthew had a book

John did too

...

Crickets...

What happened to the doubter Thomas? Did he just kick back on Malta and eat pork rinds 'til his dying days?

I'm serious. Even the 12 had different shades of people who loved Jesus - and they spent intense time with Him!

Tradition says that all 12 (including Judas' replacement) lived and breathed the Gospel with varying degrees of reach. John is supposedly the only guy that lived out his natural years, but he did it in exile!

Your church is no different. But you can lead. You can take risks for the Kingdom of Heaven. You can do more besides invite warm bodies in through the front doors.

I want to encourage others and bring honor to the Almighty in everything that I do with film and video. My goal is to take the first 11 minutes of my tv pilot and seek out decision-makers who can further the conversation about developing it into a show. If my team and I can do that, then we can teach 100,000 other microbudget filmmakers how to do the same thing so that we might tell stories of hope to millions. In the meantime, I'm a son of the King, a family man, a lifelong student of film, and the author of two microbudget filmmaking books.